The second half of the civic year kicks off with meetings of the school board, City Council and Planning Commission. 

The proposed apartment complex at the Kerbela Temple site is back at Planning Commission.

Knox County Board of Education: Reworking the Budget

The school board begins the new fiscal year with a challenge: adjusting their adopted budget to account for a missing $7.8 million in revenues.

County Commission unexpectedly raided the proposed school budget, taking $4 million to give raises to county general employees (i.e. not school employees). Then, last week, Knox County Schools officials announced that the district is receiving $3.8 million less in state funding than originally anticipated.

Superintendent Jon Rysewyk has proposed a set of cuts including 29 teaching positions and reduced schedules for administrators. The board will discuss the revised budget at its monthly work session today and vote on it at its regular meeting on Thursday, July 9. Both meetings begin at 5 p.m. in the Summer Place Boardroom.

Knoxville City Council: Data Centers and Community Development

City Council will consider a one-year moratorium on the approval of large new data centers in Knoxville at its regular meeting at 6 p.m. Tuesday, July 7, in the Main Assembly Room of the City County Building.

The moratorium proposed by Mayor Indya Kincannon would prohibit the permitting or construction within city limits of any new data center requiring 10 megawatts of power or more. Knox County Commission passed a similar moratorium for areas outside of the city limits last month.

In both cases, local officials say they want to give Knoxville-Knox County Planning time to recommend new regulations for data centers, which are crucial to the operation of many digital and online services but can also consume huge amounts of energy and water. The current boom in data-center construction nationwide is being driven partly by speculative investment in artificial intelligence technologies. 

Also on the agenda:

• An agreement with the Tennessee Department of Transportation for a pedestrian safety study on Sutherland Avenue between Longview Road and Hollywood Road;
• A $4.5 million agreement with Knoxville’s Community Development Corporation for infrastructure improvement at Western Heights as part of the Transforming Western project;
• And a request for KCDC to create a North Waterfront Redevelopment Plan, stretching between the Henley Bridge and Third Creek and from World’s Fair Park through Maplehurst to Neyland Drive.

Knoxville-Knox County Planning Commission: Kerbela Temple and More

Will this finally be the month the Planning Commission votes on the proposed apartment complex on the Kerbela Temple site in South Knoxville?

Consideration of the project has been repeatedly delayed in recent months as the developer — CR Endeavors of Birmingham, Ala. — has modified its plans to try to satisfy parts of the South Waterfront Form-Based Code. However, they are still significantly out of compliance on some issues and are seeking “Alternative Compliance” that would grant variances for those requirements. 

That’s on the agenda once again when Planning Commission meets at 1:30 p.m. Thursday, July 9, in the Main Assembly Room of the City County Building. There will no doubt be plenty of discussion, since the vast majority of 88 submitted public comments on the project are opposed to all or parts of it.

Other items of note at the meeting:

• A large proposed development that could bring more than 300 housing units to a 28-acre tract along Andrew Johnson Highway in East Knox County; 
• Commercial rezoning of property on North Cedar Bluff Road currently owned by the Church of the Good Samaritan;
• And concept and development plans for the Cottages at Karns Grove residential development on Byington Beaver Ridge Road.